Special court disqualifies 62 MPs (UPDATED)

KABUL (PAN): A special court charged with investigating September’s parliamentary election found fraud in 33 out of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, officials announced Thursday.

So far the court has said that 62 of 249 sitting parliamentarians are not qualified to hold their seats, based on the results of a vote recount the court ordered under Article 22 of Afghan election law.

At 12:00 pm Thursday the court announced the names of the 40 candidates from 18 provinces who had won seats in the Wolesi Jirga, the parliament's lower house, according to the recount.

The court has long been expected to render a decision. The Wolesi Jirga reacted strongly as the announcement approached.

On Wednesday the lower house summoned the attorney general, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and two other Supreme Court justices over the special court, which several parliamentarians argue is unconstitutional. In response, the officials claimed the legislature had no legal standing to summon them and declined to appear before parliament Thursday as requested.

The Wolesi Jirga in turn passed a no-confidence vote against the absent attorney general.

Lawmakers said that up to 80 members of parliament could lose their jobs in the vote recount.

Last week, more than 100 parliamentarians said they would quit the lower house in protest and begin demonstrations if the five-judge court disqualified even one Wolesi Jirga representative from holding office.

The special election court was created by the Supreme Court and approved by President Hamid Karzai after widespread protests by losing candidates who alleged rigging in the Sept. 18 parliamentary vote.

The court has not yet announced recount results for six provinces: Kapisa, Uruzgan, Nimroz, Daikundi, Kunar and Parwan because of discrepancies in the figures, but said the final figures would not cause any seats to change hands in those districts.

The five-judge court also determined that no electoral fraud had taken place in either central Pansher or Bamyan provinces.

The court called for the Independent Election Commission (IEC) to implement its decision and seat the winners of the recount in the Wolesi Jirga.